Azure FAQ

This FAQ provides answers to some of the common questions about our Azure application.

Q: How long does it take CloudCheckr to collect my Azure data?

A:

Azure Billing Data

CloudCheckr collects your current month’s billing data separately from your historic data. For average-sized accounts, you should be able to view the billing data for the current month within 10-20 minutes and view all months within an hour of creating the account. For larger accounts, you should be able to view full historical billing data within 12-24 hours. In the normal life cycle of a subscription, CloudCheckr processes the billing data within a 12-hour cycle. For average-sized accounts, CloudCheckr can process the billing data within 10-20 minutes while it may take 3-4 hours to process larger accounts.

Subscription Inventory

CloudCheckr collects a complete inventory of your resources and usage every 24 hours. The time to collect this data depends on the size of your Azure deployment. Smaller accounts will have their data available within 15 minutes while it may take up to an hour for larger accounts.

Q: I entered the credentials for my paying account (either EA or CSP), but I do not see any resource information for any of my subscriptions under the EA/CSP.

A: When adding the credentials of a paying account, CloudCheckr can show complete cost data across the entire EA/CSP. However, the inventory and usage data for the subscriptions under the EA/CSP is not available directly. If you want CloudCheckr to report on the subscriptions, you must create and credential each subscription within your CloudCheckr account. You can also provide users with access to these subscriptions, so they can view the data for subscriptions that they manage.

Q: Will using CloudCheckr cause me to incur any additional charges from my cloud provider?

A: Amazon and Azure charge a very small fee per API call, which CloudCheckr uses to access your account. As an example: If you have 1 million S3 objects, Amazon will charge you approximately $0.05 for CloudCheckr to inventory those files. For 1 billion S3 objects, the cost would be $5.00.

Q: Can I view my Azure Advisor checks within CloudCheckr?

A: Yes! In addition to Azure Advisor, CloudCheckr will also import and display your Azure Security Center and Azure SQL Advisor checks within your subscription(s). You can find these on separate tabs within the Best Practice report.

Q: Can CloudCheckr report on my Azure Government accounts?

A: CloudCheckr is compatible with Azure Government. When configuring your Azure accounts within CloudCheckr, you will find a drop-down menu where you can choose one of the following type of accounts: Commercial, Government, or Germany. Be sure to select Government, so CloudCheckr can retrieve the data from your Azure Government accounts.

Q: What are the differences between the various Azure accounts?

A: You can add the following Azure account types to CloudCheckr:

Enterprise Agreement (EA) – for customers that have an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft. Will collect billing data for EA. Can be used for cost reporting, customizations, and invoicing.

Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) – for customers that are Cloud Solution Providers under Microsoft. Will collect billing data for CSP. Can be used for cost reporting, customizations, and invoicing.

Active Directory – for customers that are using Office 365. Will collect user, inventory, and usage data for O365.

Resource Subscription – for any type of subscription, whether it’s pay as you go , EA, or CSP. Will collect inventory and usage data for the subscriptions. Used for best practices, right-sizing, inventory, etc.

Q: Can I see my Office 365 data within CloudCheckr?

A: Yes, you can see your billing data and usage information within CloudCheckr.

Billing: You can see your Office 365 billing data by logging into your CSP account within CloudCheckr. You must add your CSP to CloudCheckr to view your billing data. Within the Advanced Grouping report of your CSP, you can group (or filter) by Consumed Service to view the Office 365 data.

Usage: To view Office 365 usage information, you must add an Active Directory account to CloudCheckr. An Active Directory account is required because CloudCheckr accesses the Office 365 data through Microsoft Graph, which is managed and accessed through Active Directory. Once you configure your Active Directory account, CloudCheckr will automatically build the Office 365 usage reports.